Middletown High School’s football team has shown flashes of brilliance for a quarter or a half, but have been unable to put together four consistent quarters.

The Middies (2-5 overall, 1-3 Greater Miami Conference) will get another chance tonight when they travel to West Chester to face undefeated Lakota West (7-0, 4-0 GMC).

“The biggest issue is we want to see progress,” Middletown coach Troy Everhart said. “We played well against St. Xavier (a 43-39 loss in the season opener), but since then I’ve seen a good half against Fairfield and a good quarter here and there, but that’s pretty much it. We need to put a game together where we play great football all four quarters.”

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If practices this week are any indication, Middletown will be spirited against a West team that is fifth in the GMC in offense (345 yards per game) and fourth in defense (257 yards per game). West’s Malik Grove enters as the third-ranked passer in the conference with 668 yards while Michael Horton is fifth in rushing at 654. Tony Gabbard leads the league in sacks at 3.5 while Tyler Gross is third in interceptions with 3.

“They do a good job of running the football and have a good line,” Everhart said. “We’ve got to get off the field and give our offense more opportunities, because we always have that chance to be explosive offensively. We have had excellent energy and great practices this week.”

One of the keys for Middletown will be holding onto the football. Last week, Middletown lost three of their seven fumbles and were intercepted twice.

“I thought we had solved that problem (fumbles) last year,” Everhart said. “We have to do a better job securing the ball at the quarterback position. We can’t give other teams opportunities they normally wouldn’t get. We have to play for a kick, either a extra point, a kickoff or a punt. We squandered a chance for 21 points against a pretty good defense last week. We can’t give them those opportunities.”